Tony Daysog

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The Islands CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

Name: Tony Daysog

Age: 44

Occupation: Urban Planner / Sr. Associate

Relevant experience:City Councilmember, 1996-2006vice mayor, 2002-2004vice mayor, 1998-2000urban planning professional, 1989-2010Masters City Planning, UC Berkeley, 1993Alameda Redevelopment Re-use Authority, 1995-2006

Oakland Base Re-Use Authority, 1998-2003Alameda Economic Development Commission, 1995-1996City of Alameda Fiscal Sustainability Committee, 2008-2009CalTrans District 4 Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee, 2009-2010Publisher: www.moderatedemocrats.comPublisher: www.westalameda.com

Why are you running for this office?: Im in this race to provide freshleadership that focuses on getting results through good city- andneighborhood-planning, with a priority focus on getting Alameda Pointgoing. Building off of my success in championing the demolition ofdilapidated former military housing called East Housing and replacing thatwith what is now known as Bayport, I want to lead residents in finding theright private developer to transform the rest of Alameda Point into avibrant mixed-use community. To that end, I will lead the community in aneffort to modify Measure A for Alameda Point, so that we can build atthe former military base lofts and townhouses for young adults, stylishmulti-family buildings for seniors, as well as Bayport-style single-familyhomes for families with school-age children. Having this mix of housing for all incomes and ages is critical toward building the tax base to pay for beautifying Alameda Point, installing new infrastructure, preserving historic

military buildings, and enrichening the former military base with widerange of amenities, from multi-sport complex to waterfront paths withstunning views of San Francisco. A beautiful Alameda Point, in turn, willallow us to attract quality industries that provide a wide range of career-track occupations. Right now, were attracting mostly low-paywarehouse/distributions/storage oriented industries. We can do better,but we must carefully plan our future.


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Why should we vote for you?: I am a former City Councilmember whoused his urban planning professional background and City PlanningMasters degree to make fair and impartial decisions to move our community forward. As a progressive, I authored legislation to allowgay/lesbian households eligible for the real estate transfer tax exemption,as well as led the city in expanding medical benefit to gay/lesbianspouses and family members of city employees. As much as I love our historic movie theater, drawing on my urban planning/economicsbackground, I made the difficult decision of voting against the deal withmovie theater developer, on the grounds that the base rent hed pay thecity (thirty cents a square foot) was too far below market rent ($1.25 per square foot), and that the percentage share rent was unfair (80% to him,20% to us). I make tough decisions based on my impartial analysis of thedata and, because Im always diplomatic, I still manage to get along

with everybody in town, including so-called conservatives and so-calledprogressive-liberals. In short, I have the political experience,educational and professional background, and respect of variousfactions of the community, all of which will help me as I try to move our city through the difficult process of getting Alameda Point going, oneaspect of which involves modifying for the Point the 1973 City Charter amendment called Measure A, which precludes the development ofmulti-family residential structures.

What do you feel are the roles and responsibilities of the office youreseeking?: The Mayor of Alameda must set the direction the city needs togo in the short-, intermediate- and long-terms. For example, as Mayor, Iwill draw on my urban planning professional background and Mastersdegree from US Berkeley, as well as lifelong residency in Alameda andpast Council experience, to lead the city in finding the right developer toget Alameda Point going. We must get that area onto the property taxrolls not just to begin to beautify the area, enrich it with amenities for Alamendans, and provide a lively, vibrant community for all ages andincomes, but also because when we get Alameda Point going we willbegin to stabilize our school district and City Hall, both of whose financeshave been (and continue to be) severely affected by base closure. As

Mayor, I will make decisions based on fact and sound analysis, and speak out against fear-mongering, because I believe our city can move forwardbased on sound, rational city planning. While a Mayor such as myself willbe clear as to what needs to be done at Alameda Point, Webster Street,Park Street and with cutting City hall budget, I will always make sure towork closely with residents, strike compromises where necessary, butalways move our city forward in the direction I believe we need to go.


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What do you think is the most pressing issue you would face if elected andwhat would you do to address it?: The school district and City Hall weredealt severe and lasting financial hits because of base closure: lets getAlameda Point going! Getting Alameda Point going thats the mostpressing issue. Heres my plan: I will lead efforts to find the right private

developer, not Sun-Cal. I will exercise strong mayoral over-sight, makethat new developer work w/ Alameda we need a reasonable number ofupscale homes for families with school-age children, stylish senior housing,complexes, upscale waterfront town-houses, lofts for young adults. Letme stress: I seek a reasonable number of homes that makes sense for Alameda. All this creates a tax base to pay for beautifying the Point, newinfrastructure, open space, waterfront paths with stunning views, world-class recreational amenities for all Alamedans, and saving historicbuildings. All this will attract quality industries to Alameda Point. To besure, there are many valuable businesses right now at the Point (the

winery, Bladium, etc) but let us remember almost all leases right now arebelow market and do not generate enough revenues. Hence the closureof the Alameda Point fire station. So lets redevelop the Point, not simplyrent old facilities. While in 2003 I devised a fee paid by Alameda Pointresidents at Bayport to compensate City Halls General Fund, to this day,our school district is yet to fully recover from lingering financial affects ofbase closure and the loss of school children in the West End of Alameda.In getting the rest of Almaeda point going, we will put our school districtback on firmer and more stable financial footing.

What do you think needs to be done with Alameda Point and what stepswould you take to make that happen?: As Mayor, I will work with residentsto find the right and best private sector developer to fulfill thecommunitys vision of Alameda Point as a beautiful, well-planned, mixed-use community enriched with a wide range of amenities, with quality non-polluting industries that offer high-pay and a range of career-track positions. To this end, one key step I will seek is to modify the 1973 charter provision that precludes new multi-family housing in Alameda (MeasureA), so we can build a reasonable number of townhouses, lofts for youngadults, and stylish waterfront multi-family homes for seniors, along withBayport-style homes for families with school-age children. This approach

has the benefit of generating a number of revenue sources with which tobegin to pay for hard costs regarding beautifying Alameda Point andsoft costs (i.e. municipal services). Hard cost revenue streams include(1) property tax increment, which in essence is all property taxesgenerated by residential and commercial properties at Alameda Point inthe future (2) community facilities district (CFD)(i.e. Mellos-Roos) (3)private equity brought by future Alameda Point master developer (4) MillsAct tax abatement for purposes of rehabilitating and preserving historic


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military structures at Alameda Point (5) 20% federal historic preservationtax credit (6) proceeds from sale of land to master developer or other entities (7) lease revenue by current leases that we continue to maintaineven after selecting a master developer (8) proceeds from lease revenuebonds secured by capital assets such as the MARAD ships. Of the eight

revenue streams to be used to implement the community vision ofAlameda Point as a vibrant mixed-use area, the first six (which provide thegreatest amount of dollars) can only happen if and when we work withthe private sector. To boot, we cannot continue what was supposed tobe a short-term base closure policy of simply leasing out old militaryfacilities because almost all rents are below market and thus preclude usfrom accruing enough revenues to pay for implementing the communityvision for Alameda Point.

With respect to soft costs, by working with the private sector and getting

Alameda Point onto the tax rolls, we begin to generate the followingrevenue streams to fully pay for police, fire, and other city hall services, sohistoric Alameda no longer continues to subsidize Alameda Point as wedo now: (1) municipal service fee (a program for Alameda Point that Icreated in 2003) (2) redevelopment area pass-throughs (3) lease revenuesfrom leases we decided to continue to extend; (4) sales tax dollarsgenerated by retail and other business-to-business activities; and, (5)special use of redevelopment dollars for targeted purposes with respectto blight alleviation. Under the current leasing regime, we only obtainlease revenues and sales tax dollars, which are not enough to pay for on-going costs of operating Alameda Point. Hence the closure of theAlameda Point fire station.

What steps would you take to bolster Alamedas economic base?: Year in,year out, in its annual survey of corporations, Fortune 500 ranks quality ofschools as the number one reason why businesses choose to locate or expand in one area versus another. After all, corporate manager andpersonnel are also parents of school-age children, and they want whatsbest for their children. As it is, I had the opportunity to go throughAlamedas school system from second grade to high school graduation. Iattended Paden School, Chipman Middle School and Encinal High

School, before going on to and graduating from UC Berkeley. I owe somuch to my teachers in Alameda. Thats why when I was on City Councilbetween 1996-2006, I resurrected the long-dormant City Hall-AUSD jointcommittee. As well, any opportunity I got, I sought to help out our schools,to the extent of creating a novel strictly voluntary funding mechanismbetween AUSD and Alameda Municipal Power (AMP), called Power Upfor Learning. As Mayor, I will work diligently with school officials toincrease funding for our schools. I supported Measures H and E, and will


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look forward to playing a leading role in passing a new parcel measure inSpring 2011. Since parents of school-age children will be the largestnumber of shoppers at the long-delayed Target-anchored AlamedaLanding regional shopping center slated for the West End, why not returnsome portion of sales taxes generated there to our schools? Why not work

with our state legislators to figure out a way to create special legislationthat allows a greater portion of property taxes generated at AlamedaPoint to stay with our school district instead of City Halls redevelopmentagency?

In addition to improving funding for our local schools, with respect tobolstering Alamedas economic base, I will have a multi-prongedapproach. The unprecedented downturn in the economy underscoresthe point illustrated by the vacancies along Webster and Park Streets: weneed to assist our local businesses. Without letting local businesses aware

of this opportunity, City Hall recently extended contracts worth $125,000 totwo consultants from outside of Alameda to help brand our city. Yetthere are a number of residents and local businesses expert in thismarketing niche. We must give local businesses a chance at competingfor these kinds of contracts, especially when the two contracts wereextended on a no-bid basis. Another way we can help local businesses isby having City Hall work with local lenders to see what opportunities existto bolster Community Reinvestment Act lending to help local smallbusinesses. With regard to Webster Street in particular, I played a role thisSpring 2010 in getting Council to pay as much attention to this street, byreminding officials that since I left City Council in 2006 little to nothing hadbeen done with the Webster Street Strategic Plan that was adopted in2005. As a result, the current Council refocused their attention from theso-called Downtown Civic Plan to Webster Street: this time, we must findthe money to implement many of the strategies right now beingconsidered for Webster Street like we found the money to improve Park Street.

In addition to helping the small business along Park and Webster Streets,we need to target value-adding industries that are clean, non-pollutingindustries that are high-paying and provide a breadth of career-track

positions. We must stream-line the permitting process to reduce red-tapeand also implement tax- and fee-abatements for businesses in targetedindustries, particularly on the promise of hiring locally (including summer internship for high school students) and extending business-to-businesscontracts to local businesses. My grave concern is that City Council hasbegun an 15-month process for Alameda Point whereby the kind ofindustries that will be targeted are logistics and distribution, which isanother way of saying warehouse and trucking. To boot, Council recently


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begun the process of allowing the Port of Oakland to create a foreigntrade zone that will be manage by the trucking company called Matsonat Alameda Point. To be sure, one business that will be a part of the FTZ isan assembly company that will assemble goods manufactured anddesigned in another country. In its haste to fill space at the former military

base, I believe the current Council is moving away from the vision ofattracting clean, quality, non-polluting industries to Alameda Point. Weneed to attract quality high-paying value-added industries like lightmanufacturing that are aligned with Alamedas educated workforce andhigh-aspirations we hold for Alameda Point, not simply warehousedistribution and assembly shops.

Finally, there are many skilled workers in many of the leading corporationsin Alameda, such as WindRiver (Intel) and Abbot Diabetes Care. Nodoubt, many might be interested in starting up their own businesses. Id

like Alameda to reconsider having a high- and/or bio-tech incubator atAlameda Point. I led the effort to assist another incubator called ACETexpand its facilities at Alameda Point, but due to management issuesinternal to ACET it didnt complete its building expansion plans.

Questions have been raised about whether the city is transparent enoughin conducting its business. Do you think this is an issue and if so, what doyou see as being specific problems and how would you seek to resolvethem?: Transparency is the cornerstone of our democracy. The Peopleneed to know what officials whom they elected to office are doing. Akey platform of mine is to open the doors of City Hall even wider, tobring in more people and volunteers, and have them play greater decision-making roles in City Hall. To that end, I will create two newcommissions a commission on streets and sidewalks and a financecommission. The former will allow greater transparency with respect tobudgeting and planning for major assets that most residents take for granted every day, the sidewalks they walk on and the streets they driveon. The latter also allows greater transparency in matters that affect allaspects of City Hall providing any service and fixing any municipal assetrequires financing. The finance commission will assist City Council inmonitoring and preparing local budgets, with an eye toward ensuring

that Council maintains operating and capital budgets commensuratewith the size and aspirations of a city such as Alameda. Its not enough tosay our budget is balanced if balancing comes at the expense ofreduced level of service without any plan to bring service back to levelscommensurate with Alamedans quality of life aspirations. The financecommission will help City Council prepare and manage sustainablebudgets, as well as help Council make decisions with respect to long-termfinancial challenges, such as post-employment benefits for retired workers.


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Pensions and retiree health benefits will be a huge financial issue for thecity. How would you address it?: In 2008-2009, I had the privilege of servingon Alamedas Fiscal Sustainability Committee and perhaps one of theloudest messages we sent was that Alameda needs to begin now toplace more money into pensions and retiree health benefits. The longer we delay full-funding these post employment benefits, the greater thecost of these benefits will grow over time. Yet, placing money for futureretirees means less money for current city services. How then do we beginthe address this unfunded liability problem? In the immediate term, Ipropose to increase the number of furlough days. Each furlough dayrepresents approximately $200,000 in lost wages to city employees, withfive furlough days representing $1 million in lost savings. I will call onCouncil to consider five to 10 furlough days to generate $1 million to $2million in savings, which the City Manager will then be re-programmed

back to the city employees in the form of money set-aside to help closethe annual unfunded liability gap.

On a parallel track to the 5 to 10 furlough days, I will also begin theprocess of creating a two-tiered retirement system. Existing workers willcontinue to operate within previous agreements, with new hires subject tonew retirement packages. In particular, new employees retirementpackage will be a 401-K plan (or a variant): we will begin the process ofmoving away from a defined benefit retirement system (where the cityautomatically shells out an agreed-upon amount based on a formula) toa defined contribution, 401-K style system found in most private sector businesses. This transition will not immediately alter the post-employmentdifficulties alameda faces right now, since most employees will continueto be on a defined benefit plan, but we will begin the gradual change.

I will hold down salary increases for all workers, since the defined benefitplan is predicated on how much employees make. And, finally, I willmake all labor bargaining issues a matter of public discussion not behindclosed doors.

Would you seek to preserve Measure A or amend it and if youd amend it,

under what circumstances would you do so?: I am proud to have playedthe leading role when I was on City Council in demolishing dilapidatedmilitary housing called East Housing and replacing that with what is nowcalled Bayport, 490-unit stylish, upscale single-family homes. As I look atthis project and look forward to the rest of Alameda Point, I now want tolead the effort in creating a greater, more vibrant mix of homes atAlameda Point, not just McMansions. To this end, as Mayor of Alameda,


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I will lead the effort to modify Measure A for Alameda Point, as well asfor parts of Webster Street north of Buena Vista Avenue.

I want to modify Measure A for Alameda Point because, with the former military base, we have a rare opportunity to design a stylish, upscalecommunity for all ages and incomes. I want to see lofts and townhousesfor young adults, as well as stylish waterfront multi-family housing for seniorswho want to enjoy their golden years in smaller-size homes in vibrantcommunity atmosphere. I also want Bayport-style homes for families withschool-age children, although these homes should be designed a la thehandsome Fernside District in Alamedas East End. I want to cluster homesaround transit and commercial nodes, so as to encourage many modesof alternate transit, from car sharing, bus riding, to commuting by ferry.And I also want to see retail and coffee shops on the bottom of many ofthe townhouses, lofts, and multifamily buildings, to create a lively mixed-

use community where people actively engage each other. My home onHaight Avenue is near the Webster Street transit corridor andneighborhood shops that I go to and I have Alamedas Farmers Marketright in front of me. Theres a liveliness there that I just absolutely enjoy!

I also want to modify Measure A for Webster Street north of Buena VistaAvenue. This is important because this will bring young adults immediatelyto Webster Street, living in stylish, well-designed communities targeted ademographic with much disposable income and lifestyle that can onlyhelp Webster Street stores. There is controversy as to whether the heightlimits on Webster Street should be altered to go up to five stories, to whichI say, sure, why not. But, to me, what matters the most is the style of thedesign I only want stylish new housing on Webster Street north of BuenaVista avenue not box like lofts found at Jack London Square. Inmodifying Measure A for Webster Street north of Buena Vista Avenue, wewill begin to make a commensurate investment we as a city made in Park Street with the recent completion of the movie theater/downtowngarage project.

In my first year in office, each month starting in February, as Mayor ofAlameda, I will hold public meetings where I invite experts in a number of

fields: climate change/global warming, traffic/transportation planning,home builders and developers, historic preservation, alternative residentialcommunity planners such as co-housing experts, open space/wildlifemanagers, structural engineers knowledgeable about infrastructure,transit-oriented development developers, developers of stylish multi-familyresidential such as Patrick Kennedy from downtown Berkeley. In theseforums, we will engage the public on pros and cons, questions andanswers about transit-oriented development, with an eye toward building


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common set of understanding, knowledge and, above all, citywideconsensus as to how we can modify Measure A for Alameda Point andWebster Street north of Buena Vista Avenue.

Starting in June 2011, I will ask for volunteers to help me craft languagepertaining to modifying Measure A for Alameda Point. This period willoccur between June and August, 2011. In late August, after publicdeliberation, we will identify what I call consensus language to be usedto modify Measure A for Alameda and parts of Webster Street. InSeptember, I will ask volunteers to help me get signatures so as to placethe consensus verbiage for modifying Measure A for Alameda Point ontothe ballot, most likely for the presidential primaries in March 2012 or June2012 primary election.

The ballot measure will pass in 2012 because we will have involved

everyone in the community, although I will always being clear as to thegoals of the measure: modify Measure A for Alameda Point and parts ofWebster Street north of Buena Vista Avenue.

How are you financing your campaign and to whom are you reaching outfor money?: While I have obtained small contributions from a number offriends, I am largely self-financing my campaign. I have committed myselfto not taking any contributions from political action committees ofdevelopers and labor groups, so much do I value my integrity andindependence.

Tony Daysog

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